updated 08:40 pm EDT, Thu August 4, 2011

MS claims Google didn't care about shielding tech

In a response to Google's accusations, Microsoft's corporate communications lead Frank Shaw argured late Thursday that Google was being selfish in its refusal to join a coalition bidding on Novell's patents. He contended that Google just wanted patents it could wield against others. The Android developer allegedly didn't care about the wider technology industry and only about protecting itself.

"Partnering with others & reducing patent liability across industry is not something they wanted to help do," he claimed.

The claim is partly valid as Google effectively gave up rights to a large number of patents. Even though it wouldn't have had them as leverage, it could still have used them as a defensive mechanism, such as in a countersuit.

Even so, Shaw's remarks sidestep some of Google's concerns as well as ignore Microsoft's own behavior. Google's chief legal executive David Drummond had argued that many of the patents were vague and just being used for anti-competitive purposes by Microsoft, Apple, and others in the group than for legitimate attempts to protect innovative work. DOJ officials had deliberately changed the sale terms because it feared the patents would be used purely to sue, not defense like Microsoft claims.

Microsoft has itself been accused of creating many of the patent liability problems of the industry. It has made still controversial claims that it owns patents inherent to all of Android and Linux and has sued or forced royalties from many of those in the industry with few if any serious challenges to the validity of the patents in question. Apple has also been suing to slow down competition but has made far fewer blanket ownership claims.

Do you have any dignity left Google?

Google sell ads for a living, no matter if it is a real product or not, scans your email for key words in order to determine what to sell you, that means violating your privacy to sell you crappy products.
And now google is the good one in the movie?
Stealing IP from others who spend hundreds of millions on R&D and you expect it to get if for free?
I mean, from what taco stand those google lawyers came from?